City's First Half Evaluation!

Mark Hughes came in with plans and set out his foundations for City, however when Abu Dhabi took over from Thaksin Shinawatra in the summer, the future looked brighter than the mobile network Orange. On that same day, excitement turned to true shock when it was revealed Robinho was joining the club.

A series of signings including the return of City's prodigal son, Shaun Wright-Phillips brought huge hope that City could finally take that next step that Mr Wardle desperately wanted when he let Thaksin have his club. However a series of unpredictable City performances had left them fighting around relegation until City finally got some sort of consistency in recent matches. City's away performances are still leaving fans blue, but with the January signings set to boost their presence away from home, surely it is only a matter of time before the performance returns away from Eastlands.

Tudor believed that City's UEFA cup campaign was where City where producing their "great stuff" but believed that both English cups City were involved in produced pretty terrible performances and the premiership campaign still had room for improvement. cityman51 also agreed with Tudor and believed that there is "still time for improvement away from home as the UEFA Cup qualification for next year IS still in our grasp"

Elsewhere Johnny Baguette couldn't get his head round why City have failed to beat physical sides when he said: "I have been stunned at how we have failed to cope with the league's technically less gifted but more physical sides. Never expected that from a Hughes side".Buzz Lightyear also thought that the midfield was to lightweight, but believed that once the new signings settled, the peformance would improve.

However like Johnny many City fans still believed that the only way is up. bluemooner_mcfc believes that there can be no more excuses for Hughes as he managed to field over 8 of his own signings in a recent team line-up. Doody is happy with City's current position and is very excited about the future. He said the next few months "will I am sure bring both the wow factor and some frustration but we are going to start climbing the table for sure".

Fifthcolumnblue has also raised questions about City#'s form but believes that now the following points have been either been addressed or helped the club.

1) We've got the holes in the squad (mostly)filled 2) We've got rid of the two alleged worst troublemakers 3) We've all been drawn together by the negative press 4) We've still got the UEFA cup to look forward to.

Thaibluefan also summed their opinion in one word. "One word for the first half of the season - Frustration. The second half - Expectation?"

mcfcthriller, alphieblues and bluemooner_mcfc all believe that its not over until the fat lady sings although the identity of the lady seems to be vague as both Sam Allardyce and Ronaldo have all been seen singing, although the man dressed as a woman may not have been Ronaldo but may have been an acquaintance of the Brazilian.

City's first half of the season was summed up exactly by mcfctop4, who described the first half performance as:

Supporting City is like Supporting Tiger Woods with a welding mask on..

More talent than humanly conceivable, but still unable to see where he is meant to be going...

Truly brilliant! Remember you can all get involved in airing your opinions by either submitting an article to the website or by getting involved in our friendly forums.

Your Comments (oldest first)

Ive been really dissapointed with the 1st half of the season. Despite the odd games when we thrash poor teams at home, we have looked poor in every area. The players pick and choose games, and hughes has made questionable team selections, tactics and subsitions. Hes had all pre-season and a bigger transfer budget than united, arsenal and chelsea combined this season. Hes spent over 100 million and if city dont finish strongly in the second half of the season he cant complain if he gets the sack. Jo(ke) is already scoring goals at everton making hughes look wrong. My report card for the seasn so far is a big fat - D ....improvement is needed asap with three away games in a row coming up. God help us :(

Whilst I respect enzo's opinions I am a lot more upbeat myself. I think we are in for a long ride in the Uefa cup, which we will all enjoy. How about beating Milan in the final with a last minute own goal from Kaka? In the prem I expect a continued improvement. Starting at Pompey on Saturday.

Bit of everything really..........best bit was SWP returning, Ireland's form, home form (generally), beating Arsenal, the Portsmouth and Shalke wins, and the Uefa cup adventure. Knowing that our future is safe financially. Worst bits are: the knowledge that whilst money might buy you (Wagner) Love it can't buy you the Milan Number 22. The media fallout from the Kaka debarcle. Oh, and having two players on bail is not exactly ideal. Our away form. The form of our Numbers 14 and Number 2. Injuries to Petrov, Bojinov and our Number 6. Forest and Brighton. Jury still out on our Number 10, 11, 39. But we can push upwards, we're just three places off 6th and still in the Uefa Cup and with an excellent chance of progressing further. So a C at present.....but could go either way.

I'm fairly content with the season so far to be honest. Expectations are understandably high, but for me this season is write off of sorts or a bedding in season if you like. The club has gone through massive changes in every department this season alone and all these changes will take time to settle in. Im right behind Hughes, he MUST be given time, he has spent a lot of money but that is exactly what we needed to do. After all we are in 9th at the mo and on the up, baby steps are what we need.

We were still coming off a terrible run from last season, Dunney was in the midst of wondering whether to stay or go, The boards were running round chasing goofy and at the very end of the window, we get Robinho and a new Owner. Dunney decided to stay but he was banned for three games, for getting sent off again against Boro in that disaster of a game and Hughes was unable to utilise the new Owners money and had brought in SWP, Kompany and Zabaleta. We lost the Boj early on and then Petrov. The new signings looked good, but we were unbalanced still and It was obvious from the start that Ben-Haim was not the man for the job.Although the games upto Christmas were a disappoinment,we were scoring goals for fun and just could not stop letting them in at the other end and certainly the opposition didn't need any help from Dunney, but he chipped in too. The league has been a funny one and from 7th to the bottom, there is only a few points in it.We have managed to improve the side this January and sides are just stonewalling us and getting their breaks on the counter attack.The more we play with the newcomers in the side the better we will get and the good news about the Boj is he could feature soon.

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